


somewhere to begin

by mellodrama



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Background Relationships, Established Relationship, F/F, Friendship, Future Fic, Healing, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28363752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellodrama/pseuds/mellodrama
Summary: The first time La Mif visit, she spends an hour before obsessively cleaning, dusting all the windows and fluffing up the pillows. The third time they come over, Lola doesn’t bother with any of it, merely throws open the door and lets herself fall into their immediate embrace.
Relationships: Lola Lecomte & La Mif, Lola Lecomte/Maya Etienne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	somewhere to begin

**Author's Note:**

> for nameless, my partner in clowning 🤡💜
> 
> content warning: mentions of self-harm, addiction, casual underage drug use, alcoholism, cyberbullying, homophobia, mental illness & parental neglect, but only in very vague terms; nothing is graphic!! 
> 
> title from the song "somewhere only we know" by keane

* * *

"And souls are candles:  
Each lighting the other."

\- Gennady Aygi, _The People Are A Temple_

Like any other institution, the hospital has a multitude of rules. They're designed to benefit the patients, and for the most part, Lola gets it.

Some are easier than others: lights off at 9:30pm, for example. Dirty clothes need to be in the group laundry hamper by Friday or else they won’t get washed, and so forth.

Some are a little harder. She’s sure she’ll eventually appreciate all of them in retrospect, but four days into the treatment plan and Lola finds that there's nothing she wants more than to kick a hole through the plaster of her dorm room door.

Unless a major medical emergency occurs, or something catastrophic happens on the outside, there’s not allowed to be any contact between her and her loved ones. At least for a little while. It’s like a rewards system - they don’t use those specific words, not exactly, but you have to _earn_ the right to a phone call, let alone a physical visit. Something about not relying entirely on your family, about not using them as your emotional crutches. Something about the danger of unnecessary distractions.

But rules don’t always account for emotion or truth, and the simple truth is that Lola misses her people so much it’s like there's a gaping wound across her chest, vast and bloody. During her worst days, the ones where she almost screams at her therapist or walks through the cafeteria in a heavy-lidded haze, she becomes half-convinced that it’s a wound that will never heal. Either the skin will decline to stitch itself back up, or she’s condemned to forever rip it back apart again herself.

On the nights that cap those days, she burrows under the covers and spends hours staring at the three photos she’s been allowed to tack up against the wall.

By her own estimations, she’s got at least another two weeks before she’ll be able to hear the voices of the people in those photos - her sister and father in one, La Mif in the other, she and Maya occupying the third.

So she writes instead. Journal entries, letters, poems. A handmade postcard for Jo (“we need to find an abandoned rehab hospital, there’s so many corridors”); a crudely drawn comic-strip for Max. It’s been a goal of hers for a while to make him laugh at least _once._

She throws the ones penned to her father and Daphné out with the rest of the weekly trash. Those are filled with apologies and demands, cries for help morphing into assurances that she’ll be a better daughter, sister. They’re all things, her therapist says after a particularly raw session, that she’ll soon be able to cement verbally anyways. (Her therapist is not Thierry’s biggest fan. Neither is Lola still, which she’s also slowly beginning to understand is _okay.)_

But she saves the letters she’s written for Maya, bundling them up together with a spare hair-tie. She doesn’t plan to actually _show_ the small stack of papers to her girlfriend after she's been released, but when their one-month anniversary rolls around, it’s the closest thing she has to a gift, and she imagines presenting the idea of them - the feelings her letters represent - to Maya with a kiss. _You already have my heart. Here, have it again._

Or, rather: prays that somewhere out there in a small but cozy Parisian apartment, Maya can feel the energy Lola is manifesting and can sense that Lola’s thinking of her. And maybe, just maybe, she's thinking of Lola too.

**\---**

Most of her first day at her new school is spent being blanketed by La Mif.

It doesn’t feel like they’re afraid she’ll jump off a balcony if left alone; rather, it’s like they just want to make up for all of that lost time, those long, lonely months spent apart, and are now soaking up whatever they can. Like they can’t bear to be away from her for a second longer now that they don’t need to be.

It's a feeling she understands well, which means her lunch breaks are filled with Max’s quiet laughter, a stream of Sekou’s rapid commentary, and Jo bouncing from wall to wall in some constantly shifting, chaotic emotion.

It also means that she doesn’t spot Tiff until her third day, when she forgets a textbook in her locker and tells La Mif not to wait up. They leave, albeit reluctantly - already late for other classes - and Lola is on the cusp of skipping off to her own when she catches sight of a familiar figure lingering at the end of the hallway.

A flare of anger rises hotly in her chest. She knows they ended things on a relatively neutral note, but still: an _entire account_ dedicated to documenting and then mocking her every move. She wasn’t lying when she said it hurt the most that Daphné became an unwitting participant in Tiff’s mind games, but there’s a small part of her still stunned by flashes of paranoia whenever she coughs in public, or trips over a crack in the ground.

Here in the hallway, there’s nobody else but her and Tiff. If she were to do something – throw another punch, or start projectile spitting – she’d most likely get away with it. A bona fide high-school outlaw. 

But she doesn’t need to do that. Nor does she need to become buddy-buddy with her either.

There _is_ another option: she turns around and leaves.

When her biology teacher scolds her tardiness, she accepts it with a smile and promises to keep doing better from now on.

She never speaks to Tiff again.

**\---**

"I thought of you every day," Maya murmurs into her shoulder, voice roughened by too-little sleep. She drags her lips down, down, down, sweeping over Lola's collarbones and finding an eventual home in the valley of her stomach. Lola automatically reaches a hand out to tangle in Maya's hair, but her fingers come up mostly empty: a purple fringe replaced by a gentle prickle, gradually growing from buzzcut to short, soft, black locks. Nothing like its former brightly dyed glory. The Great Cut, as Jo had fondly dubbed it, occurred about a week after Lola left, and she's disappointed she missed it. 

Maybe this won’t be the last time Maya does something drastic, appearance-wise. Maybe she’ll be struck by another urge to shave it all off and start again. It’s yet another feeling Lola understands well, to destroy and rebuild, and she can only hope to be around if – _when_ – it happens again.

"Every day?"

Lola knows it's probably in everyone's best interest if they actually fall silent and then fall asleep – Maya's next shift at the store is an early one, and she has equally early plans with Sekou for a jog around the city followed by brunch – but there's something about a moment like this; one that is exclusively theirs, where nothing can touch them but each other, and she wants to prolong how long they exist within it.

She feels more than sees Maya's reply; registers the tremble of her throat and subsequent movement of lips against skin. Lola doesn't shiver, but leans into the feeling: she tightens her hand's grip, locks her legs where they cradle Maya's waist, and closes her eyes. They don't open again until her alarm rings, some acoustic cover of a song she and Daphné loved as kids, but she feels Maya's presence everywhere nonetheless, inside and out, all over.

Not quite unconscious, not quite awake: sleep isn't far-away, the two of them soon to be separated by different dreams, but for now they indulge in a shared vision where every morning is a replica of this one.

**\---**

She doesn't tell the group that they need to stop drinking and smoking around her, but it's something they endeavor to do regardless.

Whenever Max turns up smelling distinctly like sandalwood and pine, Lola knows he's spent the night before smoking weed. "It helps with my anxiety," he once mumbled, uncharacteristically open after noticing the crinkle of her nose. Maybe he felt guilty, hadn't realized that she'd quickly realize why he layers on so much body spray. 

What they do when they're alone – that's their business. She'll keep an eye on it, though, watch out for signs that they're falling down the same descent she did, but their time is their time, and she can't exactly force someone to throw out a packet of cigarettes, drain a bottle in the sink. She knows it doesn't work like that, so she's hyper aware, even in her not-exactly-yet-dependable-emotional state, to make it clear that she's someone you can talk to if need be. That her therapist has a list of therapists, and she's more than happy to pass on a few names.

 _Ah, so you're the Yelp app for French alcoholic teens,_ Jo had said sagely, not an inch of sarcasm present in her tone, and Lola thought the brief flicker of shame she felt at those words – the mortification of hearing people so disconnected to addiction speaking of it so freely – was well worth the way Max had burst into a swell of laughter. 

Besides, the group's Booze Ban (another Jo original) is a lot nicer to focus on. 

Nights out at bars take on different meanings now. It's not a weekly occurrence or anything – they're not millionaires after all; Paris nightlife still as annoyingly over-priced as ever, and Lola suspects that Sekou and Max have their own recurring Friday evening schedule anyways. She'll share her suspicions with Maya later, although her girlfriend isn't exactly known for having a fantastic gaydar.

But this particular Friday sees their worries crumble behind them as they get lost in the freedom of youth; here, under the dimmed lights, it's easy to feel excited, not terrified, at the looming stretch of life waiting before them. Here, simple pleasures like friendship and laughter and fun are the only things that seem worth a cent. Everything else can be put on pause until tomorrow.

Ironically, they're seated at the bar they met up at months ago, the one where Maya introduced her latest girlfriend – if Char could even be labelled as that – to the group, and everybody at the table pretended they weren't craving sudden death for a range of different reasons. Sekou, in a moment of social cluelessness, is the one who reminds them of it.

"Your taste in women has certainly improved," Max says, hiding a smirk in the rim of his Coke glass.

"At least this one thinks I'm funny," Jo agrees, signaling a waitress over.

Another round of non-alcoholic drinks is ordered; soda for Jo and Max, juice for Sekou and Maya, iced water for Lola. 

"Do I?" Lola asks coolly once they're all alone again, trying her best to not betray how she really feels.

There's a loud slurping sound followed by an obnoxious icy crunch, and Lola can't help the smile that breaks out despite her best efforts.

"You _love_ me," Jo says finally, slamming the glass down with one hand and wiping her mouth with the back of the other.

 _I do,_ Lola thinks. She doesn't say it, the moment already half-dissipated as Sekou cajoles Maya into a discussion about some politician's latest petition. Max looks more interested in the clench of Sekou's jaw, the way he waves an occasional hand through the air whenever Maya brings up a point he has yet to consider, and Jo is distracted by whatever wonders the menu offers.

She knocks her ankle against Jo's anyways, winces when Jo knocks back just as sharply, if not more, and her fingers immediately search for Maya's under the table, seeking a balm in contrast to the stinging pain below.

Love is sharp and soft. It's gross and clean and gentle and hard. It's everything Lola can want, and anything she can make of it, from it.

When the waitress returns for a final time, and four pairs of hands scramble to grab at the bill she's placed between them, Lola finds herself endlessly proud with what she’s helped build here.

**\---**

"So," Lola begins, slowing to a halt. When she exhales, her breath rivals the clouds above, and it takes several minutes for the faint burning in her lungs to cease.

"So," Sekou repeats, smiling softly. It's early, the winter sun a pale, glowing ring in the sky. They've still got approximately fifteen minutes of this specific route remaining, but Sekou finds himself growing lax. On days like these, it's hard to care about strictly regimented running paths when the weather itself is so miserable, and your friend-slash-jogging-buddy is demanding urgent attention.

"So," she drawls again, turning to face him. His own smile falters when he sees hers. 

"Yes?"

"Oh, nothing. Just wondering when you were going to ask Max out." She says it so casually, but he knows she's being anything but. Knows she likely suggested they run his favorite route for a reason: to lull him into a false sense of security, probably. To butter him up before becoming venomous, striking when he least expects it.

(Or becoming what she believes is venomous anyways, because he still thinks his earlier words are true: she's not a bad person, despite what everyone, including herself, may think.)

Even now, she's got a hand on his bicep, tracing her thumb in a soothing pattern, a distinct difference to her lazy smirk. _Sneaky,_ he can't help but think, and there's a flash of pride in his stomach, because Sekou is nothing but appreciative of calculation and cleverness. Provided it's mostly being used for good, that is.

He leans into her touch, frowning. "Why would I need to ask out someone I'm already seeing?"

The fact that he hadn't spluttered or immediately denied what she was implying should have been her first clue, in retrospect. Her jaw falls open, and he chuckles, running off.

"Hold on," she calls out, but he's already a good ten steps ahead. 

"I don't have time. I have to go get ready for my _date,_ " he calls back, and if asked about it later, both of them would swear that the sun suddenly seemed to shine a little bit brighter.

**\---**

The jogging and brunch dates with Sekou are an unexpected but welcome surprise. Some may even describe them as a _necessary_ one.

Lola isn't a sporty person. She wasn't joking when she begged off their game of frisbee months ago. It wasn't an excuse to collect her thoughts, or lure Maya into coming over and talking. 

She gets out of breath easily, that's the truth. She's thin, but she certainly isn’t fit, and a crucial part of her recovery plan has been to rectify that.

Her therapist suggested taking up a hobby. Taking up multiple ones, even. Not so many that she'll burn out, or fail at a few and get too frustrated to continue with any, but enough that she has various, healthy outlets to channel her energy into. Avenues that open up roads, not dead ends. 

She decides to keep photography. The passion for it never left, but the subjects have changed. So has her Instagram: photos of smashed glass and crumbling brick are long gone, replaced with snaps of Jo mid-air during a game of basketball, or the curve of Maya’s bare shoulder against Lola’s navy-blue bed sheets. Sekou wiggling his eyebrows, plucking at his suspenders, fiddling with his bowtie. The quirk of Daphné’s mouth as she stares down at her growing fashion portfolio. Basile in the kitchen, panicking over a potential stove-top fire. Max’s quiet snickering, hidden and blurry when he ducks his face into the crook of his elbow. Lola’s started noticing things like that lately, cataloguing all of the ways her loved ones laugh and smile and shout and frown.

She was aware of these things before; not every stranger was an indecipherable face amongst a bustling crowd. But sobriety and everything that has since grown alongside it – love, happiness, stability – has helped to sharpen her focus onto the little details. They're not as painful as they once were, for one.

Photography stays, acting (among many other things) goes, and running is welcomed into the mix.

Daphné tags along the first few times. They don't talk when they run, both plugged into their own music, but it's nice to finally share a silence with her sister that isn't stilted or laden with shame. Soon enough, however, Daphné is moving out, joining Basile in the apartment he and Arthur decide to rent together whilst the former saves up for culinary school. Their morning jogs together lessen, petering out until they eventually stop completely: Daphné and Basile's new place sits on the other side of the city, and Lola can't begrudge her sister for not wanting to make an early half-hour trip when she's already juggling a dozen other commitments. Besides, they still text constantly, FaceTime almost every second night, and Lola spends at least one Saturday a month sleeping over there.

(Being in the apartment alone with Thierry is difficult, even after her time at the hospital. She stays with him during the week and goes to Maya's on the weekends; if she weren't tied down by guilt regarding the complex web of feelings towards him, she'd try and stay with Maya more often, but she's also unsure as to how Maya would feel about that, so for the sake of not disturbing several fragile branches of peace, her housing situation doesn't much change.) 

Daphné's absence, no matter how understandable, still means she's out of a jogging buddy, and Lola's slowly growing accustomed to it staying like that for a while when she bumps into Sekou one morning.

Quite literally.

It's her fault, technically. Sekou's apologetic, of course, but the blame lies entirely with Lola, who was too caught up in changing her playlist to notice the figure ahead.

It's not _fate_ , or anything like that: the idea that there's a pre-destined path everyone must follow is a hard pill to swallow, especially for someone already carrying the heavy weight of parental sins, but it's _something_. Not once has she ever even caught a glimpse of Sekou when running before, and she's been following this route since she left the hospital. Yet the one time she's allowing herself to feel slightly bitter about her solitariness and just happens to be scrolling through Spotify to avoid songs that remind her of Daphné, also happens to be the one time the universe seemingly drops a friend right in front of her?

Which is how it starts. Apologies, laughter, an unspoken promise to keep running together.

Afterwards, dripping with sweat but nonetheless feeling content, Sekou suggests they get this special detox tea at a local café he speaks highly of, and Lola, despite her best judgement – she usually leaves the _proteins_ and the _organics_ and the _detoxes_ exclusively to Maya; having a vegetarian girlfriend does wonders for her diet, but she does _not_ need to know the specific details as to why yet – readily agrees.

Post-workout tea eventually becomes a post-workout brunch. They have a lot in common, it's revealed, and what they don't remains an intriguing conversational topic.

Sekou, like her girlfriend, has a predilection for life's quieter moments, and it's easy to sink into those. Awkward silence transforms into a comfortable one, but Sekou isn't above leaning into silliness either. They're snarky, able to gently tease each other one minute and then confess secrets the next, easing certain burdens neither was previously aware they were holding onto. It's nice, that balance, and whenever they see each other – on the street, or at a group hang-out – they always make sure to gently bump each other's shoulders first, a simple nod to their friendship's humble beginning.

That's how it starts.

That’s not how it ends.

(It doesn't, at all.)

**\---**

“You can invite your friends over, if you want.”

Lola looks up from the book she’s perusing on the couch. It’s a collection of poetry by French sapphic women, a gift from Max after accidentally letting it slip that she’d been writing some of her own during the hospital stay. Those ones were mostly haikus, a quick and easy way to calm down by focusing on a small, single goal, translating her pent-up emotions into words that make sense, that could be explained to a therapist. “Consider it an early Christmas present,” Max had said, scratching at his stubble like he often did when he was vaguely uncomfortable. “Because you’re certainly not getting another.”

Her heart swelled, but she’d punched him lightly on the upper arm for the sake of keeping up appearances anyways. “Don’t get too soft on me. Brooding suits you.”

“Thanks,” he said seriously, adjusting his cap before stalking off to the other side of the room, where Sekou sat cross-legged, engrossed in his laptop. Just as Max ducked down to sit next to his boyfriend, he looked up and nodded once. She nodded back, not even bothering to stop the upwards curve of her lips, and if his own mouth mirrored hers, then that was entirely between them and them alone.

And now she’s here: flicking through the pages, a strange sort of reverence hanging in the air as she presses her fingertips against the ink. The unspoken connection she suddenly and intimately feels towards millions of people - people like Max, people like Maya, people like herself - that she will never meet but is intrinsically linked with anyways. All those that came before and all those who will follow after.

Her father stands in the doorway, shuffling nervously. He coughs. She shoots him a quizzical frown.

“I have that conference on Saturday,” Thierry elaborates. “And I won’t be back until Sunday evening. If you wanted to have some friends over, go ahead. Just don't get too rowdy.”

All at once, Lola understands her sister like never before. _You care too much about what other people think about you_. Her worries don’t align with Daphné's old ones, because she’s not ashamed of their apartment to begin with, and she certainly knows the group won’t care either way.

But there’s something to be said about letting people inside - in every sense of the word. It’s intimate, to reveal a place that holds so much history between its walls: _this is where I found out my sister got me institutionalized, this is where my mother would collapse and forget to pick us up from school._ She won’t verbalize any of that, not wanting to spoil what is sure to be an otherwise enjoyable time, but it feels obvious anyways. It also feels as if they maybe _should_ be told, so they understand what it means to sit on this couch, to lean against that door. So they know how these rooms shaped her, as much as she did them.

That weekend, she spends an hour before obsessively cleaning, dusting all the windows and fluffing up the pillows. The third time La Mif come over, she doesn’t bother with any of it, merely throws open the door and lets herself fall into their immediate embrace.

**\---**

On Christmas morning, Max wakes to find two patchily wrapped presents sitting to the side of his family's tree. The attached note reveals they're both from Lola, her handwriting a sprawling symphony of loops and whorls, almost like it belongs on the front page of some fancy contract.

 **_You're_ ** _getting another even if i'm not,_ the rest of the small card reads, and thus begins the world's pettiest gift giving competition. Much to the chagrin of Maya and Sekou, it's a game that lasts for decades; _they're_ the ones tasked with sneaking the gifts in and under the trees each December, despite everyone involved having a key to the other's apartment. 

It's the principal of it all, both Max and Lola argue. The _drama_. For once, they're in total agreement. To finally fall in sync with someone - it's a nice feeling, and one that only grows as they do.

**\---**

This is her first foray into romantic relationships: Maya isn’t just her first _girlfriend,_ she’s also the only person Lola’s officially dated. Nothing had ever previously progressed past a one-night stand. Brief crushes – typically unrequited – belonged squarely in the _before_ category; before her mother’s death, before the hospital, before her thighs were littered with scars, a tiny ember of adoration would burn brightly but quickly, extinguished just as fast as they appeared whenever the person realized exactly who it was they were getting close to.

Men were a means to an end: you could get away with stealing his drink if you distracted him with a kiss immediately afterwards. Going home with him ensured open access to his stash the following morning, when he was numb to the world and you made an early retreat.

Girls were trickier. The girls at the hospital hated her. The girls at school hated her. The girls at clubs didn’t, but they usually had boyfriends who did.

So this thing with Maya – this wonderful, terrifyingly tangible thing – is new territory, the yet-to-be-navigated plains of romance entirely unfamiliar but nevertheless exciting.

But she _is_ still also Lola’s first _girlfriend,_ which cannot be overstated.

Following the incident over the supermarket cash register, most of the regular customers appear to understand that they're together. That the formerly-purple-haired checkout gal is taken by the younger girl who sometimes lingers outside the store, and people – especially men – should probably avoid flirting with either of them. _(Not_ that they should be bothering straight girls either, Maya always stresses whenever the topic comes up. Which it does, regularly, because nobody in La Mif is seemingly willing to let go of the pure theatrics of the supermarket kiss for a long time. The way Jo tells it – and she does, over and over, despite _not_ having been there in the first place; Lola doesn't know how they found out – you would assume it’s the best thing that has ever happened to the group.

Lola desperately needs Sekou and Max to reveal themselves already.)

Even still, heterosexuality is an enigma, and one that Lola cannot unravel. Beyond those that immediately understand their relationship status – made transparently clear by mid-shift visits – there’s a few who see them together, witness their wandering hands and soft smiles, and somehow still assume that they’re _just friends_.

Maya, who has more lived experience with homophobia and the like, generally finds it - not amusing per se, but there’s a certain heightened hilarity to how ignorant people can be, willfully or otherwise. Lola knows she’s still frustrated; she’s getting better at reading her girlfriend’s body language, now recognizes a lip-twitch or raised eyebrow as well-conceived annoyance bubbling beneath the surface whenever an elderly customer or over-confident teen boy asks if she’s single, or comments on how _nice_ it is to see such close friendship these days. For the most part, however, Maya is able to suppress and wave it off: her boss may be fine with the occasional dramatic over-the-counter-kiss, but lecturing the store’s patrons about heteronormativity is definitely pushing it. Instead, she nods and smiles, quickly corrects them in the few instances she assumes it’s safe to do so, and saves the rest of her ire for the apartment.

“Honestly,” she huffs, cutting up a pile of strawberries. Her slices are firm and careful, but anger bleeds from her mouth to her hands, and the blade bangs loudly against the chopping board in a steady rhythm. It’s a slow, syrupy Sunday, close to nine months after the supermarket incident, and Lola supposes there are worse things in life than hearing your girlfriend embark on a muttered rant about straight people whilst you make breakfast together. “What kind of friends do these people even have? I’m concerned. What, the next time you jump over the counter, it’s because you need everyone to know how much you appreciate my _friendship?"_

“I think,” Lola starts, mostly focused on not accidentally stabbing herself as she makes fine lines on a crescent of mango, “that my knees physically cannot do that again. We should probably just stick to making out in the backroom.”

“You know, I’m starting to think you want me to lose my job.” Despite the accompanying frown, Maya’s words are colored with a fondness reserved almost exclusively for those she holds dear, and Lola leans in to kiss her. She starts with her mouth and then moves upwards, dotting a kiss against her cheeks, nose, eyes, and forehead before repeating the entire process all over again, faster this time, speeding up until Maya begins laughing maniacally - the rare, truly unbridled way Lola loves most - sometime around the fourth cycle. 

“If it means more time for this, then absolutely, yes, I’m going to get you fired. It’s my life mission.”

“I’m honored.”

After that, Maya starts to indulge in it, seeing it less as an insult to their love, and more like another version of it: a secret only she and Lola share. Another thing that exists just for them.

“Hey _bestie_ ,” she says one night when Lola is brushing her teeth, gazing into the mirror. Sometimes it feels like she's still growing into her reflection, that the weary internal doesn’t quite yet match the newly glowing external, and the times where she loses herself within that dissociative spiral aren’t uncommon.

Maya comes up from behind and slings an arm around Lola’s front, snapping her girlfriend out of her daze, waking her up. She nods at the tiny shelf next to the mirror, filled with assorted pill bottles, a bundle of spare toothbrushes (all biodegradable), and the real object of Maya’s desire: a tube of medicinal leaf cream for her most prized plant, who, to Maya’s great concern, has been looking like it's only two seconds away from wilting at any point. “Can you grab me that?”

It continues like that for a while. Jo takes to calling them “Gal Pal #1” and “Gal Pal #2”, whilst Max alternates between whispering _your girlfriend’s here_ and _your friend’s arrived_ whenever he spots Lola before Maya does. The latter doesn’t annoy Lola like it maybe once would have: at this point, it no longer feels like a dig at their relationship, Max simultaneously undermining her place in Maya’s life and reminding them of the rocky path they all began on. It’s friendlier, softened by the occasional smiles they send each other now, and Lola makes sure to refer to Sekou as Max’s “bro” just as often.

**\---**

And yet -

"You're my best friend."

Maya spins, eyebrows arched but otherwise blank. Emotionless. It’s as comforting as it is frustrating: her girlfriend’s proclivity for patience and consideration allows Lola access to a certain area of existence that the universe had always barred her from; Maya never rushes her, rarely interrupts, and here in the apartment, where it’s just the two of them, Lola feels like she can breathe without judgement. That she can _be_ without judgment. And that level of newfound freedom is what Lola forces herself to remember whenever irritation spikes sharply in her stomach, because Maya has once more silently declined to be forthcoming with her own feelings.

She looks open now though, so Lola perseveres. This is something that’s been occupying her thoughts for a while, and today, spent entirely together – a picnic in the park followed by a movie marathon on the couch – is the perfect time to let the words fall out and sit between them. See what Maya wants to do with them and navigate that next path together.

"I know that you and Max," she pauses, searching for the right way to summarize such a complex dynamic. "I know you're close, and I know why, and I know we don't have that same history. I understand."

 _(Do you?_ A quiet, internal voice pipes up, and she thinks of a much younger Maya, defiant but alone, surrounded by the first of many families she’ll be passed around to. She thinks of what it must be like to finally have a pair of arms, familiar and warm, encircling you with the promise of never letting go. Arms that aren't bound by blood or law or duty but through pure choice, determination, dedication.

And love.

She thinks of how she’s getting to experience a semblance of that now herself.

 _Yes, yes, yes. I do,_ is the answer.)

"But?" Maya questions, still as calm and measured as ever. She’s placed the remote back on the coffee table, her attention previously held by selecting another film evaporating as soon as she heard Lola speak.

That’s what had prompted Lola’s revelatory outburst: the movie. There isn’t even anything inherently romantic about watching a movie with someone, which had been the entire point. They’d just been sitting there, leaning against each other under a shared knitted blanket, eyes entirely focused on the screen until suddenly they weren’t. Sensing movement in her periphery, Lola turned to find Maya blinking back at her slowly, owlishly, and something about it all – the lights from the movie reflecting against Maya’s cheekbones in a colorful dance, the warmth of the blanket only rivaled by Maya’s hand in hers – just felt right. It was simple and easy, the way genuine friendships always were, and Lola thought, seriously, about what it would be like to do this for the rest of her life. Their lives.

“But you’re still my best friend. My first friend ever, actually. And my favorite one.”

Maya inhales, absorbing Lola’s words one by one. “I thought Sekou was your best friend,” she says eventually, her tone delicate. “Or Jo.”

Lola shifts closer. “But I don’t kiss them, do I?” She laughs when a frown creases across Maya’s brow.

“I would hope not,” Maya says, light but still obviously very confused. “But best friends don’t normally kiss anyways.”

“No,” Lola explains with a smile. “They don’t. But you were the first person who…saw me. You invited me to parties and introduced me to your friends and hobbies. And for whatever reason, it took us, like,” she pauses to count on her fingers in an overly exaggerated manner, earning a gentle poke in the ribs. “Eight weeks to even kiss! Even though we already knew how we felt about each other from the start.”

“I don’t think my feelings for you were ever really _friendly.”_

Lola snorts. “An understatement. But we were still friends, weren’t we? Before we started dating. Even now, I consider us friends. You’re my best friend, _and_ my girlfriend." She grows quieter. "You have always given me the space to be both, or just one, without pressure for anything more. And that means the world to me."

Maya doesn't reply. Not verbally, at least, and not for a while, but Lola finds she doesn't mind as much right this second. It’s fine, she can be patient; she’s waited what feels like a long time for Maya - years, before she even knew her, and then another seven weeks when she did. She tucks her arm under Maya's instead, feels the hold tighten in response, and together they breathe.

**\---**

For their one-year anniversary, Maya gifts Lola a bracelet. Specifically, one half of a friendship bracelet set. The matching pair adorns her own wrist: a cord of hemp twine, dyed purple via blackberries they picked together in the early summer heat, filled with letter blocks and colorful charms. A tiny whale emoji, banana, rain cloud, and dandelion sit next to their initials, the _L.L_ and _M.E_ bracketing a red heart.

"I love you," she says simply, pressing the small box - carefully wrapped with recycled tissue paper - into Lola's hands. "In every way a person can."

When Jo first catches sight of them, she calls it the ‘least romantic’ present in the world, and promptly demands they all get their own anyways.

They do.

**\---**

Six years later, they get matching group tattoos.

Some types of pain, Lola will realize as a needle buzzes against her shoulder, are very much worth it.

**\---**

That's not her first tattoo, however. 

As she said to Emma the night of the _Lux & Obscurus _ world premiere: she already has someone helping with the first one.

Maya helps with the second, third, fourth, too. She's not there for the fifth on account of some last minute unfolding drama regarding a group project she's been roped into, but she's certainly there for the previous ones.

Whenever Maya's busy with something work or school related, Jo usually picks up the slack. On this occasion, "picking up the slack" translates to providing a hand for Lola to squeeze whilst the tattoo artist goes to town. 

She doesn't complain about her knuckles being crushed into fine dust until afterwards, when they're outside the parlor and thrumming with an invincibility inherent to youth. They're meeting up with the others later, and Lola hopes this feeling never ends. If it does, if it must, she's glad she won't be going through it alone.

"You're paying for whatever cosmetic surgery this hand is going to require," Jo says, wincing as she flexes her fingers gingerly.

"With _what_ money?"

"I'm sure your sugar mama will be happy to cover the costs."

Lola exhales in immediate frustration. "She's not my - "

(It's a joke, she _knows_ it's just a joke, but something glacier cold creeps down her spine regardless at the thought of leeching off Maya in any way: her money, her hospitality, her kindness, her patience. Her love. They're not like _that,_ and in the years since the most dramatic kiss a supermarket has ever witnessed, they've taken great pains to avoid becoming codependent, because it's not how relationships of any kind should be.)

"Is she not literally growing sugar snap peas in her kitchen right this second?"

"Well," Lola says, but having been finally assigned the honor of Official Watering Duties for the left side of the apartment as of last month - following a lengthy training course - she finds there's nothing even resembling a defense that she can offer right now.

"Like I said," Jo smirks, reveling in Lola's silence. "A certified sugar mama." She skips off, because _she's_ not the one who has to worry about tattoo aftercare, or a stomach that aches from a solid two straight hours of tensing.

Lola rolls her eyes. "You're impossible," she says, although there's no real bite to her tone. There hasn't been in a long time.

"Nope," Jo yells gleefully over her shoulder, the words floating through the air, lingering like a spot of bright, white cloud on an otherwise sunny day. A shield from the glare, something to point at and say, _hey, that one kinda looks like a heart. Beating, beautiful, big._

"No?"

"Nope," Jo repeats, this time popping the 'p'. Distantly, it reminds Lola of someone blowing a bubble with their gum. That's another tip her therapist recommended: give your mouth something to chew on whenever a craving hits. _Necessary_ distractions, it seems, also exist alongside their unnecessary counterparts, but Lola thinks that maybe distractions shouldn't be strictly categorized as either. Maybe things shouldn't be classified as distractions in the first place, merely elements - moments, objects, people - that you can be equally ready for and unprepared to orbit around at various stages in your life. Maybe she wouldn't have ended up being a good friend or girlfriend had she not chosen to stay at the hospital again, but it doesn't mean she wouldn't have deserved friendship or love. And it doesn't mean, she thinks with a determined fierceness, that she can't be good to them, and herself, now and forever.

During yesterday’s brunch, Sekou offhandedly revealed that they each carry a spare pack of spearmint with them in case she runs out, the same way they’ve all memorized the phone number of Maya’s boss should they need to call in sick on her behalf. It's just another thing you do, Lola now knows, when you care for someone: you learn how best to respond to panic attacks, research the correct method for administering a shot of testosterone, and understand why scoffing through someone’s excited ramble isn't as fun as your gut instinct tells you it is. 

She jolts when she feels a pair of hands grasp her shoulders. 

“I’m not impossible,” Jo says, tugging her back into the present. Her eyes gleam with mirth, but Lola doesn't think she's ever heard Jo sound this sincere before either. "Nah, I'm just your friend."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> this was entirely inspired by me thinking about how lamifex are likely lola's first ever real friends, and how that makes maya specifically lola's first ever friend, and who she'd probably consider a best friend too, and like...the bittersweet tragedy of it all. 
> 
> let me know your thoughts! have a safe & happy holiday season :-)


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